Dear The Real Singapore,
天理何在？
Mum killing son because feeling stressed out, worried about providing for her nine-year-old son, being unemployed for long time, financially dependent on her ageing mother. For this, Rebecca Loh Chui Lai gets maximum 10 years jail. Though she was diagnosed as suffering from post-schizophrenic depression at the time and has a history of schizophrenic illness, IMH still judged her fit to stand. Why was Rebecca left to fend for herself with a nine-year old son who suffered from osteoporosis and numerous other debilitating conditions?
Was there a social worker assigned to her case by MSF?
What help did the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) provide? Rebecca should have been entitled to close to $1000 a month from Public Assistance as her mother was earning below $1700 a month. How come she did not get any support from the government?
Like Kenneth Jeyaretnam said, unfortunately the questions will not be answered now that Rebecca has pleaded guilty. In other advanced countries there would be outcries against the social workers and the Ministry responsible for letting this happen. The role of MSF and the social workers (if any) has not been examined.
Sending a mentally ill person that is under a lot of stress from looking after an aging mother and a disabled son despite being unemployed for a long time to 10 years jail is simply too much!
Meanwhile, rich man killed cyclist after nite out drinking and driving. The Mercedes Benz owner, Ambrose Law Tian Beng, global chief financial officer at Merrill Lynch International Bank and Bank of Singapore before he retired, only gets 4 weeks jail.
Rebecca Loh should have hired a car, drank a couple of bottle of beers before mowing down her son.
I feel like the Singapore courts system is not very fair in the sentencing. Rebecca should not deserve the maximum sentence for 10 years.
What do your readers think?
Jules Ang
TRS reader
Editor's Note:
Given the circumstances faced by Rebacca Loh, the obvious struggles and endless stress that she must have been under, it may seen harsh for the courts to give her the maximum sentence for her charge. However, it must also be noted that while Ms Loh was given the maximum sentence possible for a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, this is already a reduced charge compared with the charge of Murder that she was first going to be charged with.
If she had been charged with and convicted of murder, she would have faced a mandatory death sentence, so from the perspective of the courts, this "maximum sentence" for culpable homicide is already a lighter sentence. The laws state what the maximum penalties are for certain offences and the courts do not have the flexibility to give sentences outside of these ranges. They are also bound be precedence (past cases) when deciding how to sentence offenders.